'Sushi parasites' have increased 283-fold in past 40 years | Hacker News Reader

'Sushi parasites' have increased 283-fold in past 40 years

eurekalert.org

105 pointselorant45 comments

If parasites weren't bad enough:

> They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/22fish.html

> A piece of tuna sushi has the potential to be an endangered species, a fraud or a health hazard. All three of these cases were uncovered in this study.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... and https://www.wired.com/2009/11/tunadna/

I'm not a fish eating person but I live in a fishing (and farming) region. I've heard people from here who have gone away on vacation say often the fish they are served is wrong. Usually it's a cheaper type substituted for more expensive species of fish.

This happens extremely often in Greece, targetting clueless tourists.

I seriously doubt that this happens "extremely often" in Greece. First, for small fish like fresh anchovies and sardines (extremely popular and widely sold) this problem is nonexistent.

Most/all tavernas and inexpensive restaurants in Greece that have bigger fresh fish on the menu encourage you to go into the kitchen and either pick the fish yourself or watch it being picked/prepared for you. Additionally, when grilled or fried the entire fish is served on the plate.

Finally, the really expensive gourmet fish restaurants have a reputation to uphold and wouldn't risk it to target "clueless tourists".

> for small fish like fresh anchovies and sardines (extremely popular and widely sold) this problem is non-existent.

Yes, I am referring to bigger fish indeed.

> Most/all tavernas and inexpensive restaurants in Greece that have bigger fresh fish on the menu encourage you to go into the kitchen and either pick the fish yourself or watch it being picked/prepared for you

Where did you get that from? That absolutely never happens. And even if it did happen unless if they had the fish labelled the tourists would still be unable to know if they were being tricked.

> the really expensive gourmet fish restaurants

I was mostly referring to taverns. You will find lots of them in touristic areas. Gourmet restaurants not so much.

Agreed, I lived in Trikala and Athens for close to a year and never heard of this "pick your own fish" option. In fact, I was surprised by how unpopular fish seemed to be. In Thessaloniki all we ate were gyros and pizzas (poor students), the restaurant owner who served us in Nafpaktos was proud to call his town "the meat capital" of the country, on a trip to Delphi and Olympia we just had the typical meat and roasted vegetable/salad shared meal, and in Crete my friends told me the best thing was rabbit stew. Either way, we had only meat in both Heraklion and Chania. In Rhodes we were told by a souvenir seller that they ate "everything", but that octopus was the best... until they all got eaten. The deer were also good, but those got eaten as well... so gyros for us there too.

The two seafood meals I do remember were at the base of Poseidon's temple in Sounion (a small, pretty dodgy Russian café at which we ate because it was the only thing there and the bus wasn't coming back for another hour), and traveling in downtown Corfu in the middle of their deadest season and being offered some pink fish the size of a shoe for €50. We ended up getting some fresh prawns and pizzas for much, much cheaper. The marble and roses and Venetian influence were well worth the rip-off attempt though.

I'm not saying no one eats fish there, just I had ample time to see it if it were the case and, well, nope. Very surprising for a peninsula, but then I just figured they were overfished. What I did learn though is that my absolute favourite Greek food is their simple salad. You can literally taste the sun.

All these places: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Trikala,+Greece/Thessaloniki...

No, it doesn't. In tourists' spots in Greece the fish is served whole, not filleted. There's no way you can order one thing and be served something else. Also the menu regarding fish products isn't fixed. It depends on what is available on any given day. What can and does happen occasionally is to be served fish that isn't quite fresh.

Serving the fish whole doesn't address the problem that most people not accustomed to being served a whole fish likely don't know what a salmon or tuna or trout or tilapia or yellowtail or what have you actually looks like, let alone be able to differentiate between them. Sure, maybe they'll figure out some obvious cases (catfish are pretty distinctive, and anchovies/sardines are typically served whole even in the "West"), and some freshwater fish like salmon and trout might be recognizable to folks who've gone fishing at least once in their lives, but otherwise there's a pretty good chance you can point at a halibut, say "this is a tilapia", and get someone to believe you.

The actual menu paper is static, it usually just says to ask the server about what is available for the day.

From the article: "Despite their name, herring worms can be found in a variety of marine fish and squid species. When people eat live herring worms, the parasite can invade the intestinal wall and cause symptoms that mimic those of food poisoning, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. In most cases, the worm dies after a few days and the symptoms disappear."

I thought all sushi had to be flash frozen to kill parasites. Is this a myth?

same

I believe this the case for fish in general

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Dq6_HHfUA <3 Brad

Last I saw, that was the case in the U.S. but not Japan. Sometimes there were still U.S. cases from people making sushi at home. I'm no expert though.

Exception is for very deepwater fish like yellowfin tuna and skipjack.

You will still eat the worms, not that it is necessarily a bad thing. When I go fish in the south of Norway I see these worms in maybe 1 out of 10 fish I catch. I personally don't eat them but I don't think it's unhealthy as long as they are dead.

Considering health and seafood, I'd be much more worried about is eating Norwegian farmed salmon, that stuff is poison [1]. The amount of toxins has not go down since this article was warning Norwegians.

I never touch it myself and the wild fish you catch close to the mares are monsters compared to the fish that does not consume leftovers from feeding the salmon.

[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3... (Google translate)

I read something recently about AquaStorm, which aims to move fish farms out of the fjords and into deeper sea water, with the purported benefits of avoiding sea lice and disease. Do you have an insider opinion on this?

I'm not an insider, just a Norwegian that consumes seafood :)

But that might help if they reduce the drugs they put in the feed. However I think what needs to happen is that they stop poisoning public waters and move everything to highly controlled on-shore facilities.

I would still be worried about heavy metals etc as the feed contains left-overs from other fish like bones (high in toxins) and fatty tissues that humans don't want to eat.

They take the "role" of the apex predator except for us and it's typical that the higher you are in the food chain the more toxins build up.

As far as I know, most ( or at least All current export I know of ) Farmed Salmon are Deep Sea type Farmed Salmon. The idea is instead of having the possibility of them going to fresh water to spawn, they are kept at specific region of deep sea and greatly reduce the chances of getting parasites.

So I am not entirely sure what the article is suggesting. May be for Salmon that is not intend to be served as sushi? Because Freshwater Salmon doesn't fit that bill.

Per the article, “increased 283-fold” means a specific variety of worm is now more common in the fish. It doesn’t mean parasites have become more common in people. It’s consistent with these results for sushi freezing to still kill the worms.

Not all fish is required to be frozen to kill the parasites actually. there are classes of fish that are considered not significantly dangerous to warrant that procedure. I looked up the fda guidelines on it a while ago.

At least for the US, they requires some type of process but it is messier than perhaps it should be. For one the responsibility for freezing the fish can be shifted between the restaurant serving and the vendor, and might not be effective. This is because time tables for acceptable methods of freezing fish vary in length depending on the temperature they are stored at. Some of the higher temperatures takes a couple weeks, and for example a restaurant might be buying fresh fish and not storing them in a freezer long enough.

I heard flash freezing can make the sushi taste better too. Does anyone know if this true?

The effect of freezing on taste is certainly subjective, but it is not seen to be detrimental to the taste or texture. In fact, several renowned masters are in record as preferring there fish to be raw at purchase and then they freeze them themselves using low temperature deep freezers for set periods of time. I do find the effects of freezing to enhance the preparations, but then I tend to agree with the Japanese philosophy that sushi is about the rice, and the fish is just a condiment.

Well yeah, sushi is the rice itself, while sashimi is the raw fish itself. If you have a mixture of both, it's still called it sushi. You can also have sushi with vegetables or fruits and no fish or meat. Your sushi can come with or without seaweed.

Korea has a similar dish called kimbap, which literally translates to "seaweed rice", so having something other than a roll wouldn't be kimbap anymore. Also, Korean kimbap uses a different recipe for the rice (usually sesame oil and salt), so it can't even be considered a special case of sushi (rice with vinegar and sugar).

I feel far too many people don't understand what sushi is, even if the consider it one of their favorite foods.

Except Tuna, because Tuna is known to be exceptionally clean fish. Salmon definitely needs to be frozen.

> Is this a myth?

No. Fish for sushi is recommended to be flash frozen or frozen for X number of days to kill the parasites. FDA recommendations for freezing fish to kill parasites.

"Freezing and storing at an ambient temperature of -4°F (-20°C) or below for 7 days (total time), or freezing at an ambient temperature of -31°F (-35°C) or below until solid and storing at an ambient temperature of -31°F (-35°C) or below for 15 hours, or freezing at an ambient temperature of -31°F (-35°C) or below until solid and storing at an ambient temperature of -4°F (-20°C) or below for 24 hours are sufficient to kill parasites. Note that these conditions may not be suitable for freezing particularly large fish (e.g., thicker than 6 inches). "

https://www.fda.gov/media/80777/download

You could freeze fish in your freezer since most freezers can do -4°F or lower, but it will just take longer to kill the parasites.

People also catch fish, check for parasites visually and then prepare it sushi/sashimi style and eat it. Even here, you'll generally be okay but the odds of getting sick increases.

Also, the article is from eurekaalrt and the headline is clickbait nonsense.

Even if "sushi parasite" increased 283 fold, what's the increase in sushi consumption? It went from pretty much 0 40 years ago to being almost ubiquitous today.

I'm pretty sure "sushi grade" fish is fish that has been frozen properly, and restaurants have to follow FDA guidelines on raw foods like this. It's not just a good idea, it's the law (in the US).

Honestly, my wife and I often forego the freeze step when we make sushi at home. Yes, it's an increased risk, but it's a risk we both accept, and since we typically buy fillets, it's quite possible that it has already been frozen properly but the store isn't comfortable making guarantees.

It's a recommendation by the FDA in the US, not an enforced regulation.

Where was the testing? After living in Japan I stopped eating sushi in the US. It's always painful when someone asks me to recommend a "good sushi place" here, I'm not sure what to say.

Just say Los Angeles

Yep, never been to Japan but I can confidently say there are plenty of excellent sushi restaurants here in LA.

If you would like to try sushi you should spend time in Japan

That's kind of a long trip for a meal.

I mean, I have. Pretty sure the Japanese dudes serving me omakase knew what they were doing. Would love to go to Japan eventually.

I have tried lots of sushi in Japan and it's just as good in LA.

Or Reno.

Seriously, the sushi places here are on average at least on par with (if not better than) what you'd get from most coastal cities (LA and SF included), and certainly better than what you can find in other "inland" cities, and are almost always all-you-can-eat at a much lower price point than what most coastal cities offer (my favorite here, Tokyo Sushi, even throws in all-you-can-drink sake Monday through Thursday; it ain't great sake, but it does the job).

My hypothesis is that the casinos have built up a strong supply chain for fresh fish (in order to supply their restaurants, including sushi bars) and a talent pool for chefs skilled with handling/preparing fish (including sushi chefs), and independent sushi bars are thus able to piggyback on both. I'm suddenly curious if Vegas has a similar dynamic (I haven't been there enough to know).

Yeah, the rolls and stuff are definitely pretty thoroughly "Americanized", but the nigiri's almost always top-notch wherever I go.

personally I prefer US sushi places, local salmon in particular is an insanely buttery and delectable slice of raw fish, Ive never understood the japanese obsession with rice, it’s fine but salmon is better imo

It could be because salmon hasn't traditionally been a fish used for sushi in Japan.

https://medium.com/torodex/salmon-sushi-is-not-a-japanese-in...

What do you mean "Japanese obsession with rice"? That's literally what sushi is (rice with vinegar and sugar). Sushi doesn't have to have fish on it to be sushi, it can have vegetables or fruit or whatever else you want. If your sushi place doesn't make good rice, it's literally a bad sushi place (though it could be a good sashimi place if it has good fish).

This article is a clickbait. The title tells about sushi parasites, but there is no such thing.

I also heard that salmon farming is the biggest "consumer" of antibiotics, is that true?

Not even remotely playing in the same league as chicken

That proverbial gas station sushi. There, I said it, mark me down. It was worth it.

This is a horse shit study turned into click bait. It's a meta analysis (aka they built linear regression models on top of reported numbers in papers over a 37 year time span) and they explicitly state that it mostly applies to cetaceans rather than human beings. There are other results in the paper that indicate the methodology was flawed: aka other closely related, or ecologically similar worm species didn't increase in the samples in the meta data.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mYokKOGyhQxKntSnogcm...

There's a larger lesson to be learned here, but at the moment stating the obvious about mass media dipshits reporting on bad stats doesn't seem to be appreciated.

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